


I blame you (for my taking-care-of-people problem)

by overtherisingstar



Series: Darcy, meet Soulmate. Soulmate, meet Darcy. [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Meet-Cute, Protectiveness, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 00:18:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6831202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtherisingstar/pseuds/overtherisingstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Darcy thinks it's completely her soulmate's fault that she has an obsession with taking care of people, and the author overuses italics and parentheses.</p>
<p>Or, Darcy and Bucky bond over complaining about Steve's deathwish.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>The author has watched Captain America: Civil War, but there shouldn't be any spoilers in this work. The one thing in here that could be counted a spoiler is something we've all more or less guessed anyway.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	I blame you (for my taking-care-of-people problem)

Darcy’s not sure how she ended up at Avengers’ Tower, New York.

Okay, so she knows how, but this was _so_ not in her life plan when she signed up for that internship with Jane. Shut up. She’s entitled to some confusion.

She sighs, browsing disinterestedly through the TV channels. Working with Jane is still great, but ever since Bruce took off and Tony had to relent and let the Winter Soldier come live at his Tower (he’d stewed for _weeks_ ), Darcy’s work has somehow become simultaneously easier and more exhausting. Easier because she no longer has to look after Bruce, more exhausting because Bruce wasn’t actually that hard to look after and she misses him. Also, Tony’s been an ass. And with that, she means ’more of an ass than usual’.

It’s only in the last couple of days that Tony’s let up on the stewing and (mostly) forgiven the ex-assassin for murdering his parents. It might, _maybe_ , have been because Darcy, Pepper and Natasha ganged up on him and beat him over the head with logic. Darcy doesn’t know and she doesn’t care, so long as it means Tony stops blaming the wrong guy for his parents’ deaths. Being brainwashed by Hydra was _so_ not Sergeant Barnes’s fault, and Darcy thinks he probably blames himself enough for that already without adding the load of other people blaming him. (So she has a bleeding heart problem, a _taking care of people_ problem. So what. She blames her soulmark completely. Also, she wishes that her stupid soulmate would just show up already, because come _on_!)

Darcy’s guess that the Sergeant blames himself is fully and completely a guess, however, as she hasn’t even met the guy yet. Jane’s been on a science bender for pretty much the last three _weeks_ , and Tony buried himself in his lab at about the moment the Winter Soldier came to Avengers’ Tower, so Darcy’s had her hands full. She can’t actually remember the last time she got a full night’s sleep, and she’s the kind of tired where she is literally _too exhausted to sleep_ , which sucks major balls. Also, it’s the reason why she is currently sitting on the couch in what has been dubbed “the Avengers’ common room”, trying to find something mindless to watch on the bazillion of channels on Tony’s stupidly tricked out TV. She’s not having much luck.

Darcy has just settled on a Spanish soap opera that seems to involve a lot of people getting hysterical at each other in Spanish, just because she can find _literally nothing else_ , when she hears raised voices.

_Curiosity killed the cat_ , Darcy thinks, pondering what to do. To eavesdrop or not to eavesdrop, that is the question. ( _Ha, Shakespeare_. Yeah, she’s tired.)

She thinks about it for all of two seconds, then she hits ‘mute’ and finishes the thought with, _but satisfaction brought him back_. She squirms around on the sofa until she’s facing the door and listens to the real life drama getting closer and closer.

“Jesus Christ, Steve, I’m not saying you’re fragile. I’m saying you should show some common sense and not _jump out of an airplane without a parachute_.”

“I don’t see what common sense has to do with that,” Steve Rogers says over his shoulder as he enters the room. If Darcy’s guess is right, then it means that the voice of reason in this scenario (because yeah, Darcy might not know Steve well, but she, too, has a problem with Cap jumping out of airplanes without parachutes) is none other than Sergeant James “Bucky” Barnes, the Winter Soldier, who has only been Darcy’s crush since oh primary school or so. “Even if I landed wrong, I would still survive it. I can take it, Buck.”

Yeah, Darcy can’t let _that_ stand. Entertained as she is by this argument, ‘Buck’ sounds like he needs reinforcements. A thought that is confirmed when he enters the room, rolling his blue eyes to the heavens and, upon noticing Darcy, gives her a look that seems to say ‘Can you even believe this guy.’

Darcy responds to that look by aiming an exasperated “Just because you _can_ , doesn’t mean you _should_!” Steve’s way.

Steve looks round at her in surprise (because apparently, he _hadn’t_ noticed that she was in the room), while Sergeant Barnes (who is actually even _hotter_ with his hobo hair, scruff, and shiny arm than he was in Darcy’s history books, which is _so_ not fair!) comes to a stop a few steps into the room, giving Darcy a thumbs-up (be still her heart).

“Yeah, exactly! What she said!” he tells Steve.

And then Darcy tumbles head first into the rabbit hole.

Okay, so that was overly dramatic. What really happens is this: Sergeant Barnes ignores Steve’s protests, and speaks to Darcy for the first time. Speaks the words that are _her soulmark_ , to be exact: “ **Thanks for that, couldn’t have said it better myself. I need all the help I can get, keeping this nutjob alive.** ” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder at Steve.

Darcy just sort of blinks at him for a minute, because this was not what she expected to happen when she got out of her bed this morning. Meeting her history lesson crush and having him turn out to be her soulmate? That was just _way_ beyond anything she had ever expected of her life.

Though, maybe she should have expected it. Darcy’s life is shock full of unexpected twists and turns, after all. _Aaand_ maybe she should say something, because Bucky (James? What is she even supposed to call him? She can’t just keep calling her soulmate ‘Sergeant Barnes’!) is starting to look a little worried.

“ **Anytime** ,” she manages to get out faintly. Then she realises that she should probably continue, so he’ll know it’s her (because “Anytime” is pretty general and unhelpful to have as a soulmark). It’s also around that same time that she realises, for realsies, that _holy shit_ her history lesson crush is her soulmate! War hero, charmer, would-totally-help-little-old-ladies-cross-the-street Bucky Barnes is her _soulmate_! She must have been _good_ in a past life!

A wide grin growing on her face, Darcy ends up continuing Bucky’s soulmark with “ **Hey, does this earn me a date? Because I totally think this should earn me a date.** ”

Her soulmate (!) starts, then he looks her up and down ( _thoroughly_ ) and gets the most _shit-eating grin_ on his face. “You know, I think it does,” he says delightedly.

There’s a _thunk!_ and then Steve is swearing in the background. Both Bucky and Darcy ignore him.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus:  
> “I’m Darcy.”  
> “I know.”  
> “You _know_? How do you-?” A sigh. “Did you hack into my personal SHIELD file?”  
>  “...No?”  
> “Wow, that’s a big fat lie.”  
> “Yeah.”  
> “I hate you.”  
> “No, you don’t.”  
> Another sigh. “No. No, I don’t.”


End file.
